In poker parlance, weak players are often referred to as "fish." They are the guppies who get swallowed by sharks and contribute mightily to the poker ecosystem.
- But things are not always as they appear.
- Sometimes the fish attack; prey becomes predator.
And that can even happen during World Series of Poker tournaments, where the competition is particularly keen and relatively weak players don’t stand a chance.
It's a good bet that anyone who manages to win a major poker tournament can outplay 98 per cent of the world. However, at a WSOP event, they compete against a field that includes the top 2 per cent.
Sometimes, however, the relatively weak rise to the occasion and become incredibly strong. Then these supposed fish beat their opponents when least expected.
Through a combination of luck and skill, they step up and shock the poker world. Saluting underdogs who walk off with the gold, here are wild tales from the big-time poker felt.
Let's recall when the seemingly harmless fish showed their teeth and ate the sharks who expected to devour them.
HAL FOWLER
In 1979, the World Series of Poker Main Event was a small, low-key affair with just 54 entrants. The $10,000 buy-in equalled the annual salary for many Americans. It was an event only for the most elite players – the best poker players of all time.
On the rare occasions when an amateur with money to burn stepped in, hoping to be a poker champion, the outcomes were expectedly disastrous.
Then came Hal Fowler. He was a virtual unknown, supposedly put into the Main Event with an entry fee borrowed from a member of the Binion family (owners of Binion’s Horseshoe, where the Series took place). Obviously, a gambler, Fowler took a flyer on the big game.
Alongside his chips, the amateur kept a pill bottle, supposedly loaded up with “the real strong type.” Fowler played like a man out of control, making erratic moves and somehow ploughing through a final table that included Johnny Moss and Chip Reese. These were not the days of poker GTO!
At one point, when it was heads-up between him and Bobby “The Wizard” Hoff, Fowler asked to take a breather and finish the game the next day. His request was denied, and he proceeded to go all-in on every hand.
Somehow, the plan worked. Hal broke the heart and the chip stack of Hoff, won the Main Event, and took down $270,000. Hoff said that he never got over the loss.
After winning, Fowler vowed to go on tour as the WSOP champ and promised to sell 10,000 copies of Doyle Brunson’s poker playing bible, Super System – still rated one of the most popular poker books of all time.
A look back on Doyle Brunson's poker legacy.
"I think I just love the game of poker." pic.twitter.com/NnZXiSEk7a— PokerGO (@PokerGO) May 16, 2023
He bet Brunson $5,000 that he would do it. Fowler's tour never got rolling, and he sent Brunson a $5,000 check, even though he could have got away with it.
It impressed Brunson. Speaking of the now deceased Fowler, Brunson (also deceased) said, “At least he was an honest guy.”
STEVE ALBINI
It would have been easy not to take Steve Albini seriously at the poker table. The individual was renowned as a highly ethical producer of punk rock records (most notably, Nirvana's In Utero album) and the leader of his noise-rock musical outfit Shellac.
But those who underestimated Albini did so at their peril.
Albini made this clear when he won the 2018 World Series of Poker's $1,500 Seven-Card Stud event.
He beat 310 competitors to take down a first prize of $105,629. It was nearly twice as much as his previous total career earnings at various World Series events.
Among those at the final table were bracelet winners Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, who finished fourth, and Jeff Lisandro, who came in second.
During the final hands, Albini was far from a shoo-in. He began heads-up play slightly ahead of Lisandro. But, multiple times, Lisandro managed to gain a 2:1 or better edge over the punk rock legend.
Albini did not allow those circumstances to get him down. He kept at it and managed to snag the kinds of board cards that made it difficult for Lisandro to call his bets.
Finally, Albini had Lisandro down to a bring-in and a call. Albini knocked him out in the final poker hand with a pair of 10s against Lisandro’s Ace high.
And this win was not a fluke, but rather a promising start. In 2022, Albini finished first in the $1,500 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. tournament for a haul of $196,089.
What was Albini’s secret to success? Playing poker when you would least expect it.
“When my band is on tour and I find myself with nothing to do after a show in a strange town, I can Google the words ‘poker’ and ‘casino’ and find out if there is a poker game nearby,” Albini, who died in May 2024, at age 61, told The Ringer.
“I’ve played poker just about everywhere I’ve sat down as a musician or an engineer.”
JAMIE GOLD
At the start of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event, few of Jamie Gold’s 8,772 opponents thought much about the Hollywood agent who sat among them. By the fourth day, when he was chip leader, it was hard not to notice Gold.
However, as the planet’s most prestigious poker tournament hurtled toward its conclusion, he became impossible to ignore.
From Day 4 onward, Gold never relinquished his lead.
He was ultra-aggressive, always seemed to be in the right place at the right time. He schooled his opponents on how to bluff in poker while the cards had a habit of falling his way.
His chattiness at the table was annoying to some, but it also presented an advantage for him. Gold later apologised in a New York Times story for having flashed a card so that an opponent saw it, but he expressed no remorse for the aggression or verboseness.
Gold’s poker mentor, Johnny Chan, noted that he was impressed by Gold’s final table performance, which had him knocking out seven of eight players. Gold said that he played the best poker of his life at the 2006 World Series of Poker. Both his skill level and confidence seemed to grow continually.
He took down the $12 million grand prize when his pair of Queens, made on the flop, beat opponent Paul Wasicka’s pocket 10s.
As for allegations that Gold won by getting lucky, he shrugged off what other people said.
“I’m lucky in life, my whole life has been fortunate,” Gold told the New York Times. “Every single great thing that’s happened to me, I’ve been really grateful. Maybe I was lucky. I don’t know how you can beat 9,000 people without being lucky.”
